


MothmanTV [Aka: Dib, the 3am Youtuber]

by KayTh3Great



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: 3AM, :(, Cryptids, Dib - Freeform, M/M, ZADF, ZaDr, Zim - Freeform, again im sorry, cryptid, dib is a 3am youtuber, i explain in the notes im sorry, more implied, nothing too too bad but it's there, only half beta read, semi-detailed descriptions of injuries, the zadr isnt really there completely, youtubeau, youtuberau
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27297595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayTh3Great/pseuds/KayTh3Great
Summary: Dib ended up watching one of those "three a.m. summoning" videos, discovering how unrealistic and bland the majority of them were (mostly just grown men yelling at plushies or drinking fake potions). He decided to make a REAL summoning video to clown on them that very quickly rose in popularity.After he saw how many people liked the first one, he made another. And another. Continually making viral video after viral video.Only problem? He's actually going out all alone and putting himself in danger, and while the views and ad revenue are nice, it's getting progressively harder to hide the bruises and other injuries he's getting from summoning and then subsequentially escaping from all these creatures. Especially from a small, nosy alien who knows nothing.Dib is a 3a.m. Youtuber with real content (and no free giftcards giveaway), and it's starting to wear him down. No one knows it's him doing this, but it's getting harder to hide all the injuries he's getting from it. What will he do when Zim finally confronts him over all the new scars and bruises he's been showing up with as of late?
Relationships: Dib & Zim (Invader Zim), Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 63





	MothmanTV [Aka: Dib, the 3am Youtuber]

**Author's Note:**

> Zim is 19 in human years in this, Dib is 18
> 
> fair warning about halfway through there's a quality drop, i'll explai in the bottom note

Dib entered his apartment, throwing his bag to the side as he slammed the door behind him. He plopped down on the couch, groaning as he checked the time to find that it was currently six in the morning.

He rolled onto his back, scrolling through the notifications he'd ignored while he was out 'working';about five texts from Zim, a response from a paranormal content network he'd reached out to, sponsor emails, and a bunch of random pings on his discord. The one from the network was just an automated response to an email he sent about joining.

' _Thanks for your email! Unfortunately this time of the year is pretty busy so I'm not sure when I'll be getting back to you but I'll try my best to keep in touch._ '

He sighed as he read it, knowing that he would likely not actually be getting a reply any time soon. He went on to check the ones from Zim, wincing when he saw the time they'd been sent. All of the messages were from around two or so, Zim was asking if he was gonna be busy the next day and had gotten progressively angry at the lack of a response.

Dib felt bad about accidentally ignoring the alien, but at the same time it was still kinda funny making him upset like that. Even though they'd been friends for about four years at this point, they both still took pleasure in getting a rise out of eachother.

He decided that he would just leave Zim on read for a while before actually giving him an answer, hoping it would make him even more frustrated.

Dib figured he should check over the footage he'd gotten before trying to sleep, better he know now if it was unusable so he could prepare to go out later and try again. He stood up, immediately regretting it as he felt a sharp sting in his ankle. He'd almost forgotten about his injury, the leftover adernaline holding the pain back until he was actually home and comfortable.

He sighed, deciding it was probably a better idea to check how bad he'd hurt himself this time before looking over his recording. He shrugged his coat off onto the couch before limping over to the bathroom to get the first-aide kit, already seeing the new bruises on his arms that just added to the growing collection at this point.

Once he was in the bathroom, he took off his pants as well and took stock of the damage. Luckilly, from what he could tell, his ankle wasn't broken like last time, but it definately didn't look pretty. It was all kinds of blue, black, and purple, and he was pretty sure that although the bone hadn't been broken this time it was almost definately bruised.

There were various cuts up and down his legs, some new and some old, all from him either running away from or actively fighting whatever he'd decided was the monster of the week.

"I really need to figure out a better way to do this...", he muttered to himself as he cleaned up the blood from the newer cuts.

He'd been making youtube videos for a little over three months, quickly gaining popularity from how 'realistic' his content tended to be. He decided to take some time after he graduated highskool to get himself together, much to the dismay of his father who wanted him to go to university almost immediately. He used the money he'd been saving (and quietly taking from his father) to easily pay for a moderately sized one-bed one-bath apartment.

He had enough to cover him for well over a year and a half, giving him plenty of time to figure out what he was doing. He'd managed to stumble into what he was currently working on all because of a shitpost.

Someone on one of his forums posted this ridiculous video from some guy named Jaxbox called "DO NOT CALL BLOATY AT 3AM WHILE PLAYING STATIC ON YOUR TV (Real)(Scary)(HE ACTUALLY ANSWERED!!!)", and that started him down a rabbit hole of looking into more of these channels. He noticed that there were tons of them, all incredibly fake and clickbait ridden with an obvious target audience of children.

Dib decided that he would try his hand at making a real three a.m. summoning video, knowing that he could just summon some low-tier demon or something and get a few clicks.

Something he _hadn't_ expected was for that quickly made, low effort summoning video to get fairly popular in a few online circles and communities; the paranormal ones laughing about how it made fun of actual three a.m. youtubers, and a few editing and graphic design communites trying to figure out how he did it. That led to him making another even more popular video, and then another, and _another_... and now he had a little over half a million subscribers and was making a fairly good bit of ad revenue.

But that led to his current issue: He felt like he kept having to out-do himself for content, getting closer and closer to doing potentially lethal things just for views.

Case in point, spending the last few hours filming a video about summoning and playing hide-and-seek with a large and gangly monster. He'd managed to trip while he was running from it, and ended up getting snagged by the foot before he had a chance to get back up.

Dib probably would have died if the sun hadn't started over the horizon at that point, making the monster dissapear right as it was in the middle of crushing his ankle in it's large hand.

_Nothing I can't handle, literally spent half my teen years fighting an alien and saving the world. A few bruises are fine._

He stood again, satisfied enough with his patch job as he grabbed his stained pants and threw them in his laundry basket. He made his way back out to the livingroom, figuring at this point it would be better for him to just go to sleep and check his footage later. He grabbed his phone from the couch, noticing a few new texts from Zim as he tiredly limped his way to his room.

_7:43 Wed-Zim: Are you just now waking or still up_

_7:44 Wed-Zim: ANSWER OR FACE THE WRATH OF ZIM_

_7:50 Wed-Dib: Going to bed now, had something I was working on_

_7:51 Wed-Zim: So I suppose you're going to be busy with sleep today, then_

_7:52 Wed-Dib: Depends on what you had in mind, I should be fine with just a nap_

_7:52 Wed-Zim: Zim has found a new recipe he thinks he'll like and wishes to try making it_

_7:54 Wed-Dib: Should be good with a few hours of sleep for that_

_7:55 Wed-Dib: I'll be over at like one, porbably_

_7:56 Wed-Zim: Go to sleep so you can remember how to spell_

_7:57 Wed-Dib: :(_

Dib plugged his phone in after that, setting an alarm before rolling over and almost immediately passing out.

Around noon, he was shaken from a nightmare by his phone going off. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, thankful that he was already forgetting whatever was going on in his dream as he went to shower before heading over to Zim's house. He knew he probably still had a bit of blood on him, and (despite having no nose) Zim had the sense of smell of a hound and would definately ask questions.

His ankle didn't hurt as much as before he went to bed, but the fact that he was still limping slightly meant one more thing he was gonna have to put effort into hiding. He shot Zim a text saying he was on his way over before heading out.

Zim openned the door for him, looking annoyed. "You said you would be here at one."

Dib rolled his eyes and pushed past him, "It's literally like one-fifteen. I could have just kept sleeping instead of coming over to help you."

Zim closed the door before quickly walking over so that he was in front of Dib, "Zim does not require assistance! I just... need an extra set of hands that wont eat all the ingredients."

Dib looked around the room, "Where _is_ Gir, anyways?"

"I gave him some money and told him to go to the mall or something. As long as he doesn't cause damage here Zim does not care what he does."

Dib came up next to Zim and set his arm on top of his head, causing the small alien to growl.

Over the years, both of them had grown quite a bit in comparison to when they were younger. Zim was a nice five foot four, nearly three feet taller than when he first arrived on the planet and honestly a surprise given the fact that irkens usually matured young and stayed in the range of three to four feet tall.

In spite of that, Dib still managed to tower over him.

The human was nearly seven feet tall, and despite the fact that he'd reached the age that humans considered matured, he still somehow managed to gain another inch or two every once in a while.

"So, what are we making today?", Dib asked, doing his best to keep weight off of his right ankle without making it obvious.

" _Zim_ will be making bread of bananas. _You_ will be standing by and handing over ingredients."

"Banana bread, great, that's something easy."

Dib yawned and Zim slid out from under his arm, causing the human to stumble slightly. He winced as he ended up stepping on his bad leg with his full weight, sucking in a sharp breath and immediately regretting it when he saw Zim's antennae perk at the noise.

Dib quickly recovered, standing up straight again and trying his best to ignore what just happened, "Do you even have all the stuff we'd need for banana bread?"

Zim narrowed his eyes at the human for a moment before turing on his heel and starting towards the kitchen, "Yes, I found the recipe last week and made sure all parts were aquired."

"Did you-"

"The bananas have been sitting out, yes. Zim is capable enough to prepare for something as simple as this."

Dib followed him into the kitchen, hands raised in defeat even though Zim still had his back to him, "Alright, alright, just checking. I'll get the bowls and stuff down."

Zim gathered the ingredients and turned the oven on while Dib got the bowls and measuring stuff together.

The alien crossed his arms and scoffed at Dib once they were both done with their prep tasks, "You can remove your coat, you know. I am aware it's the start of the fall season but Zim's house is warm enough the t-shirt should suffice."

Dib set what he was holding down on the counter and jokingly struck a pose.

"Aw, come on! It's part of my aesthetic!"

_It also hides the bruises from you._

Zim rolled his eyes, "It's extremely unnecessary."

"I could say the same thing about those _thigh highs_ you wear every once in a while."

"Zim's thigh high socks have purpose!"

"And so does my coat."

Zim threw a stick of butter at him, "It's time to get started on the recipe. Mix that with the sugar until it's creamy."

"I though I was just here to hand you stuff.", Dib said sarcastically as he threw the butter into a bowl.

"It will go faster if we both do things, Zim will be doing the other stuff. Use a cup of sugar."

Zim started mashing the bananas and adding the dry ingredients together while Dib messed with the butter.

The human was spacing out as he mixed the two ingredients together, thinking about the video he'd shot that morning and trying to figure out how long it would take to edit. He hadn't even looked at what he'd shot yet, something else he was dreading, so he didn't know how much of what he had was usable.

After a few minutes, Zim came over and hip checked him out of the way so he could get to the bowl.

Dib ended up putting too much weight on his ankle for a second time, and squeaked in pain as he stood up straight again. "Would you stop doing stuff like that?", He glared at Zim, who seemed like he was more focussed on what he was doing than the human.

Zim finished mixing everything together and transfered it to the pan, still not saying anything to Dib.

"How long does it take to cook?", Dib asked as he watched the alien shove it into the oven.

"Roughly an hour." Zim's reply was blunt, and his tone was a bit darker than before.

Before Dib could ask him what was wrong, the alien gave him a sudden push that knocked him to the floor.

"Zim! What-?!", Dib was cut off by Zim suddenly grabbing his injured leg and lifting it.

"What have you done to your leg?", Zim's tone was full of poorly masked anger.

"Nothing! Put me d-"

"Zim isn't stupid, unlike you appear to be."

"Let go!" Dib started thrashing around, trying to get out of Zim's grip. His escape attempt was thwarted by Zim lightly squeezing his ankle, causing him to wimper.

"Remove your pants so Zim can see the injury.", the alien said as he glared down at him.

Dib blushed, trying to wiggle away again, " _Hell no_! Just roll the pantleg up or something!"

"Oh shut up, you have undergarments on. Now unbutton your pants before you aquire a new pair of shorts."

They silently glared at eachother for a stretch of time, neither relenting.

Dib eventually gave in, though, just wanting to get out of the position he was being held in. He let out an angry huff as he unbuttoned his pants, "Jeez, fine! I better get to take some of the bread home."

Zim pulled the pants off of him, throwing them to the side and freezing when he saw all of the cuts and bruises lining the human's legs.

Dib avoided eye contact as Zim unwrapped his ankle, regretting the fact that he hadn't just stayed home and slept more. Zim was a bit less careless with the ace bandage, setting it on the counter before returning his attention to the injury.

"What have you been up to recently to do this much damage to yourself?", Zim asked, his voice concearningly calm as he looked over the heavily bruised ankle.

"I ended up falling down while I was out in the woods doing some cryptid hunting stuff."

"Do you fall down every time you leave your apartment or something? Some of these cuts are old. And, if Zim recalls,", Zim grabbed Dib's other leg, making sure he didn't give a window of opporitunity to escape as he carefully dropped the injured one, "this ankle was broken only a few months ago."

Dib was starting to get nervous, he had no idea how to deflect this conversation and he was starting to get a headache from Zim lifing his lower half by his leg. "Why does it matter? I'm just clumsy.", Dib tried to sound annoyed, crossing his arms the best he could given his current possition.

Zim narrowed his eyes at him again. "Does this have something to do with your horrid sleep schedule as of late?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"And you ignored Zim's question previously. Obviously we both need to learn how to better communicate with one another."

He dropped Dib's leg, tossing the ace bandage onto the human's chest before taking a step back and crossing his arms. Dib scrambled to sit up, silently glaring at Zim as he wrapped his ankle up again. He pulled his pants back on as he stood, gritting his teeth as he had weight on his injury for a few seconds too long.

Once he was properly clothed again, he sighed and tried his best to give Zim a reassuring look. "Listen, it's nothing, I promise. I just ended up falling down in the woods. That's it. I'd tell you if something was up, you know that."

Zim just continued to glare at him, seemingly not convinced. Dib sighed, deciding it would be easier for him to just go sit at the table while the bread finished cooking rather than just standing there feeling like an idiot as the alien scrutinized him.

After a few more moments of uncomfortable silence, Zim's antennae lowered slightly and his gaze softened, "And you promise that those injuries are just a result of you falling down like an idiot?"

"Ok ow wouldn't phrase it like that but yeah."

The alien let out a small _hmph_ before turning his head to the side and folding his arms, "Then Zim suposses he can forgive you for showing up in such a state. Learn how to be more careful before you end up cracking open your gargantuan head like an egg."

The rest of the visit was relatively short; Zim took the banana bread out of the oven, waited for it to cool, and gave half of it to Dib before telling him to go home and rest.

Dib could tell that despite what he had said, Zim was mad. The main tell being the fact that Zim usually forced him to spend the night after they made anything. He knew better than to try and argue about it at this point, though, so Dib just left without a fight. He had a video to edit, anyways.

Dib got to work almost immediately once he was home, going through his footage and getting rid of any instances of his face before getting to the propper editing. It didn't take him very long; he just had to add some music to the more tense bits and trim some of the quiet moments that stretched on too long. Once he was done, he set it up as a scheduled upload for the next day and closed the tab.

He sighed as he tried to figure out what he was going to do. He had to plan and get ready for whatever he was doing for his next video, but... with his ankle in it's current state there weren't many easy options. At least, not any that general audiences would find entertaining.

He could just do something simple in his apartment, but he'd also have to make sure he didn't end up causing any serious property damage or leave any lasting hauntings. Still, though, he honestly didn't have many options and there was no way he was waiting two weeks to an entire _month_ to get something out.

He went through a few forums, looking for something small he could pull off from the comfort of his home. He spent a few hours just scrolling through different threads and topics relating to summoning before finally stumbling upon something that looked like it would actually work.

"' _Drirgromak of the mirror_ '... That one doesn't look too bad.", he said to himself as he scrolled over the details again. It seemed fairly simple, and from what he could tell he already had what he needed.

He yawned as he bookmarked the thread, deciding it would be better for him to give it a propper look once he'd slept. He closed his laptop, standing and stretching as he made his way to his room. He had a week to figure it out before he really had to worry about getting a new video out anyways, but it wasn't like he had anything else to do.

That week went by fairly quick, his new video garnering him a nice few million views in the span of mere days. The comments were the same as they always were; a mixture of children saying how not scary it was, skeptics calling it fake and telling him to stop, people from the paranormal comunity calling it great, and the odd few who were genuinely worried about his safety outside of the whole entertainment aspect of it.

Dib had begun setting up his camera stuff in his bathroom, already wishing he could just be doing something else. He'd gone over the ritual itself several times over the last few days, making sure he had everything and taking the propper steps to make sure everything went well.

Much to the delight of his poor, fractured, sleep schedule, this ritual was done at midnight. That meant that he could just get it done early and go to bed at a semi-decent time given everything went well.

With one last check over all his equipment and materials, Dib stood in front of his camera and sighed before pressing record.

"Hey, everyone! Mothman again!", same as his other videos the camera was pointed at his chest, only showing him from the neck down as he spoke, "I wanted to start this video off by saying that I _am_ in fact ok after how the last one ended. I didn't really have time to film a real outro given... how that ended up, but I didn't get any mortal injuries from it."

He paused for a moment.

"Though I can't really go out and run around like I usually do for a bit. My ankle's not broken like last time, I think, but I don't really want to tempt the fates and end up making something small alot worse than it needs to be." He gestured around a bit with his arms, "Hence why this video is coming to you from scenic ' _Bathroom-I-Should-Have-Probably-Cleaned-A-Bit-Better-Before-Filming_ '!"

He let out a slightly nervous sigh, still not all that comfortable with being on camera. "But the room itself isn't the star today, more specifically we just need the mirror. Now that I _did_ clean up well enough for this." 

He picked the camera up, carefully angling it so the mirror was in frame but he wasn't, "Today, we're going to be summoning Drirgromak of the mirror, a mouthfull I know. It's a demon similar to something like Bloody Mary, except this one didn't really take off outside of really niche corners of the internet. From the research I did going into this, Drirgromak is based on some online folklore that doesn't really have a definate starting point outside of early forum culture. People claimed that if they looked into their mirror too long in a room with low lighting, a demon would slowly come out and try to grab them."

He chuckled a bit.

"Just sitting there and looking at a mirror in the dark _does_ make you see some weird stuff, don't get me wrong, but that's an actual thing with studies on it that I'm sure would bore people if I got into it in this video. The point is, you need some other stuff for something to actually happen. And I have that other stuff right here."

He then proceeded to list off all of the supplies he had for the ritual, his own safety measures included.

"Just like all the videos before this, I'm going to tell everyone watching that you really shouldn't attempt anything you see in my videos. As always I'm going to edit some of the steps out, but I know there's some people out there who are determined enough to find the info themselves.", he paused for a moment, "This stuff isn't something you play around with, just watch me do it instead of trying it yourself, trust me. Now, it's time to get started."

He placed the camera on the tripod he'd set up in the corner so it could see the whole room.

"This is going to be a nightmare to edit..."

Unlike the twelve videos that came before it, his head was going to be in frame for almost the entire runtime. It was the only way he could be sure he was capturing everything, and he'd already resigned himself to the fate of having to blur it.

The first step for the ritual was setting up the candles. The type didn't matter, the only specification was that there had to be enough to just barely light the room with one being bigger than the rest; that one going in front of the mirror being used.

Next, any main light source outside of the candles had to be turned off or covered. Before he turned the bathroom lights off, Dib made a ring of salt around the brim of the sink as a protective measure (his own addition given the blatant lack of any in the original), as well as setting up a few other things that usually worked to ward off harm from the supernatural.

Lights finally off and atmosphere achieved, the first propper stage of the ritual started. He grabbed a small bundle of dried flowers, nothing special just some old wildflowers, and held them over the candle in front of him. The ritual said it just had to be something easilly burnable, but Dib felt like the flowers had a bit more flair than just some paper or something.

Once a good majority of the bundle had burnt, he stuck a finger into the ash filled wax. He used it to write out the demon's name on the mirror, sufficiently scalding himself in the process.

Lastly, he grabbed the cup of ice water he'd prepared, splashing the mirror five times before dumping the rest on the candle. "Alright, now I place my hand on the mirror and..."

He reached his arm out, the ice cold surface rippling unnaturally at his touch. Dib sucked in a breath, honestly kinda suprised it worked given the heavy emphasis on 'intent' the original post had. He watched as some cold, blue fingers slowly emerged from the mirror and interlocked with his hand. He quickly pulled it back, knowing that the whole gimic with this demon was being 'sucked into the mirror' and wanting none of that. 

The fingers remained firm in their grip, though, and as he pulled back there was a fairly petite blue arm followed out.

" _My, rather foreward, aren't you?_ ", the voice came rippling out from the mirror, it was feminine and deep with something slightly off about it. Another hand came out, very easilly resting itself on the salt covered sink and using it to emerge even more.

Dib took a step back, still trying to free his hand from it's grip, "Great, cool, demon in my bathroom. Ok. This was a bad idea."

Drirgromak laughed as it saw Dib starting to quietly panic. " _Aww, are you scared?_ ", a slim, dark blue face began to emerge from the mirror as it continued speaking, " _Isn't this the outcome you wanted? Don't humans enjoy when things come as advertised?_ "

It's face was partially rotted, random bits of flesh either completely gone or mangled in a way that made his skin crawl, with long, matted hair falling to the side. " _Oh, come on, at least give a response. It's no fun to play with your food if it doesn't have some personality._ "

Dib swallowed the lump in his throat. "I'm not your 'food', thanks.", Dib started trying to think of what he should do, while also realizing that him quietly standing there would make for a pretty boring video, "Though I _am_ curious about what you actually are. The salt isn't having any effect on you and you're coming pretty far out of that mirror."

Drirgromak quirked a brow at him, surprised by the sudden attitude shift, " _Well well, you're rude._ "

"It's not rude, it's a pretty important detail in this interaction."

" _You have no right to know, although I must say you are rather cute. I assume you know mine, but care to share your name with me?_ "

It reached the hand not locked onto his towards his jaw, causing him to take another rushed step away and inadvertantly pull the demon out more.

"Gotta say, didn't expect the first thing to ever call me 'cute' to be some weird mirror demon. I can't really say the same about you, though, sorry."

Drirgromak let out an offened growl as it thrust it's free hand out again and firmly grabbed him by the jaw. He reached up to try to remove it, only for his own hand to go right through. " _The **cute** part is how you're struggling. You can't grab something that isn't there, human._"

"Oh you can't be serious." 

Drirgromak laughed a dark, malicious cackle as it pulled his face closer, " _Would you like to retract that statement about looks, you big headed little boy?_ "

Dib laughed, a genuine laugh that surprised the demon. "Y'know, it's a bit funny. You remind me of someone, he used to act just like this, same insults and everything.", he was trying to buy time (also give more runtime to his video) to think of a way out of this situation, "Course he's way more threatening than you, and I could honestly call him cute if I had to. Meanwhile you look like you've seen the wrong end of a lawnmover."

The demon growled at him, digging it's sharp nails into his cheeks, " _You have such a large mouth for someone in your situation. I'd say it was refreshing if it wasn't so utterly frustrating. This is going on too long for my tastes._ "

It started pulling him closter to the mirror, ready to pull him in and get this interaction finished.

"Wow, you're impatient, aren't you?", Dib's voice was muffled slightly by the hand still tightly gripping the lower half of his face.

Drirgromak didn't respond as it continued dragging him closer. He placed his free hand against the wall in an effort to keep his head as far away from the mirror as he could manage. Based on the posts he'd found about it, the only way to actually get sucked in was to go head first, so as long as he kept that away he'd have more time to figure out what to do.

He hazarded a finger towards the mirror from the hand he had on the wall, proving that statement true as it just rested on the unnaturally cold mirror.

_Okokok think, the only way to get it to go away is to change what's being reflected._

He looked around at everything he had in arms reach.

_Shit! There isn't anything I can grab that wasn't already in the mirror._

The demon jostled him and he almost lost his grip on the wall.

_OK OK OK this isn't looking good._

Dib's eyes widened before he immediately cringed, realizing what he had to do. He very quickly drew back his hand before bashing the mirror with as much stregnth as he could muster. As soon as he made contact, the demon made a surprised noise before suddenly dissapearing.

He backed away from the mirror as he cradled his now bleeding hand against his chest. "Guess I'm not gonna be getting the deposit back, huh?" He held up his hand to examine it, cringing as he watched the blood basically pouring out in a steady stream that dripped onto the floor.

"Right, that's probably gonna need stitches.", he looked toward the camera, "Uh, I guess that's it, for this video, heh. I'll put an update in the description about my hand, if it's not there just look for a pinned comment. Mothman, signing off."

He sighed as he quickly used his good hand to turn tha camera off, already wanting the night to be over. He turned the light on and openned the door before he put the candles out, keeping his distance from the mirror until they were all extinguished. 

Now that he was fairly confident the demon wasn't able to manifest again, he finally took a good look at his hand with the first-aide kit on standby. He rinsed off the blood, wincing as the water hit it. The bleeding had calmed down slightly, but it was still pretty bad. He made sure no glass had gotten in the cut before wrapping his hand up tight enough keep it compressed.

_If it's still bleeding in a few hours, I'll go to the emergency room again._

He ran his good hand through his hair and sighed, regretting the whole video idea in the first place. He looked into his now broken mirror, already dreading having to call the landlord about it, and noticed dried blood on his face from where the claws had been dug in; five small crescent shaped wounds that all had their own little bits of blood around them. He cleaned that up as well, now frustrated about the fact that he had an injury he couldn't hide in a place that was extremely obvious.

Once he was done playing doctor, he got to work editing footage. He was up until about seven or eight in the morning again finishing it up, but at least the video was done and rendered. He set it up to premere later in the evening at a time when he'd probably be awake before standing up and going to bed.

Hours later, he was woken up by yet another nightmare, sitting up in bed as he tried to catch his breath and calm his heart back down. He still had a bit before the alarms he'd set were going to go off, but laying back down had the risk or going back into the nightmare so he just got up.

He checked his phone, frowning a bit at the lack of anything from Zim. Since the whole ankle thing a week ago, the alien hadn't really been answering him as much. He was planning on going to Zim's house randomly and surprising him with fundip or something, but anything that involved face-to-face interaction was going to have to wait until after the claw marks on his cheeks healed.

He checked his hand (it wasn't gushing blood still so he figured it was alright), made some food and waited for the video premeire; interacting with people in the chat as the time ticked down. 

Like usual, the video was well recieved and his socials were blowing up. He was ready to spend the entire night interacting with all the feedback, but after an hour or two that plan was interupted by a knock at the door.

He went to open it, not sure who would be coming over at eight o'clock in the evening but really hoping it wasn't the landlord since he didn't have an excuse for the mirror just yet.

Luckily for him, it wasn't his landlord. Unluckily, when he openned the door , he was greeted by four pak legs being aimed directly at him. He moved to dodge out of instinct, however thanks to his still healing ankle he only managed to fall backwards onto the floor.

Zim came inside and closed the door behind him, anger almost radiating off of him.

"You know, something didn't sit well after the last time you were in my home.", the small alien was basically growling as he spoke, "So Zim decided to go onto the internet and look into reasons for a human to suddenly start showing up with injuries."

"Zim,-"

" _That_ particular search didn't yield many results that would apply to you. However it did lead to the video site humans all seem to use. There was an extremely interesting video in the reccomendation bar to the side."

Zim took a step closer, causing Dib to scoot back until he hit the couch.

"It was a video of an idiot in the woods running around and testing his luck with a monster that was nearly twice his size. Now, that video ended pretty abruptly as the moron in it almost got killed only to be saved by pure luck. But _oh_ , there was a whole channel of content like this from the same stupid, stupid individual."

Dib had started sweating, already knowing where this was going, "Z-Zim, if I could-"

"Zim watched all of these videos, all twelve of them. And with each one I was almost certain that I recognized the imbecile making them. But no, I figured there was no way you'd be that stupid."

He took another step closer.

"Surely, there was some sort of brain inside of your massive cranium. Of course, that was before the video uploaded tonight. One featuring an extremely _familiar location_."

He raised his pak legs up again, all of them aimed directly at Dib.

"And an extremely familiar _idiot_ almost **_dying_** , only to save himself at the last second by causing even more bodily harm. If you really wanted to be hurt that badly, you should have said something, because after learning of your excapades I am more than happy to oblige!"

Dib raised his arms up in front of him, preparing to block any attacks that might be thrown his way, "Why do you even care?!"

After a few moments of not being skewered, Dib slowly lowered his arms and looked up at the alien. Zim's face was hard to read, and the fact that his antennae were covered by the wig definately wasn't helping.

The previous expression of rage had been replaced with more of a blank one. "You...", the alien's voice was soft, not nearly as agressive as it just was, "You seriously need to wonder why it is that Zim would care that you've nearly died several times?" The pak legs went away, and Zim just looked down at him. "After nearly four years, that is a question you feel you have to ask?"

"I-", Dib gazed up, confused by the alien's sudden shift in tone, "I mean... it's a valid point. Why do you care about what I'm doing?" He took Zim's change in demeanor as a chance to stand and pretend he had some sort of composure after cowering against his sofa for the last few minutes. "I'm doing something I enjoy, why do you care if I'm putting myself in danger?"

Zim just stood there staring at him, an astonished look on his face, "You seriously, at this point, actually need to question the fact that Zim is worried for your safety?"

" _First of all_ , if you were actually worried about my safety you wouldn't have burst into my apartment with you pak legs out ready to stab me!", Dib said, actually starting to get angry about the whole situation, "And you didn't even answer my question; Why do you care so much?"

"You...", the alien almost looked hurt, but he was trying his best to keep up a front of indifference. "Fine.", he turned, his back to Dib as he walked to the door again, "Have fun with causing yourself harm. As an answer to your question, consider this: How would you feel if you discovered someone you care for was putting themselves in immediate danger? What sort of reaction would you have?"

"What?"

Zim didn't say anything else, he simply left much quieter than he'd entered.

Dib looked at the door for several minutes after Zim left, trying to understand what had just happened. He scoffed, going over to lock his door again.

"If he wants to be like that, fine. It's his problem."

He went back over to his couch, angrilly ploping down and finding something to distract himself with.

He woke up the next moring, not that he remembered falling asleep, and stretched as he checked his phone.

He had the usual notifications; comments, discord, emails, ect. But, there was a distinct lack of anything from Zim. He rolled his eyes, figuring the alien was going to stay mad at him.

_9:35 Sat-Dib: I'm not apologizing or whatever_

_9:35 Sat-Dib: Let me know when you actually want to talk instead of just threatening me_

He put his phone away, going to deal with his hand and get something to eat. About an hour later there had been no response from Zim, despite the fact that the messages had been read. Dib just rolled his eyes and went to engage with some comments.

It'd been a while since Zim had thrown a fit like that, but he wasn't just going to go along with it and let him do whatever he wanted.

Sticking to that mindset, a week later when he still hadn't gotten a response from Zim, he was pretending it didn't upset him. True, his anger had mostly fizzled out by this point, and Zim was really the only person he talked to... But he refused to say sorry when he'd done nothing wrong. So he left that situation to fester as he prepared for his next bit of content.

Another week later, and still no answer from Zim, Dib was out in the woods at two in the morning preparing for a livestream. On an older video, he promised he'd set one up if that video hit seventy-five thousand likes.

The goal had been reached almost immediately and a good chunk of his viewers kept asking him about it, so he figured now was as good a time as any to get it over with.

His ankle was healed enough that he felt comfortable running on it, something he'd likely be doing considering the decided contents of the stream: Round two with the monster that had done the damage to him in the first place.

He doublechecked to make sure he had all the summoning stuff ready before setting his phone up on a tripod and going live.

"Alright... there we go...", he made sure his face was out of frame as he watched people start showing up in the chat. "Great, it looks like it's working! Can everyone hear me?"

The answer from the chat was mostly yes, a few 'mic muted's were in there but that's a constant with livestreaming. "Okay, looks like you guys can hear what I'm saying. So from the title, you guys can probably guess what I'm gonna be doing tonight, but it's rematch time with the Stalker."

He put a hand on the back of his head.

"Well, metaphorical rematch, anyways. I'm gonna see if I can get away without him almost breaking a bone this time. Warning you guys now, this stream is gonna be at least like three hours long... maybe four. The game is to last til the sun comes up, and while I technically did that last time, I don't think it really counts since it actually caught me."

He looked at the chat, gauging reactions.

"Oh, someone in the chat just mentioned what I was gonna bring up next; my ankle should be okay enough for this to work out. Last time, it was mostly just me hiding with the occasional chase, so I should be healed enough for it.", he stopped to read for a moment before holding up his still bandaged hand, "The hand is alright too, guys. It's still not completely healed, but it's scabbed over so I'm considering it good enough for this."

He chuckled as he watched people's reactions to that statement.

"Yeah, 'ew scabs', haha. You guys aren't the ones that have to deal with keeping it from actually getting gross."

He glanced at the time.

"Alright, two-fifty. The ritual gets done at three, and I already have everything ready. And I saw a few people ask about it, yes this will still be up to watch later. I'm also probably gonna edit it down too that way people don't have to watch like four hours of me just quietly ducking behind trees."

He grabbed his phone, switching it from the front camera to the outer one. "I'm gonna have it like this so I can see what I'm filming when we get started, I still don't feel comfortable showing my face just yet so I don't want that accidentally popping up on the screen."

Three a.m. came, Dib doing the ritual and making sure he got a good shot of the monster before running away.

"Alright, game is started!", he said between pants as he ran, "Won't be talking much until the sun comes up, but I'll try my best to keep an eye on the chat!"

After he'd gained what he felt was a good bit of distance, Dib took a sharp turn and hid behind a tree as he tried to catch his breath. Once he'd calmed his breathing, he peeked out, trying to see if he could get a good look at the monster. It had come barreling in the same direction as him, slowing to sniff around once he'd managed to get out of sight.

It was currently running it's long, white fingers along some trees as it stalked in his direction. He carefully got up, doing his best to not make any noise as he started moving again.

He quietly moved to another tree, making sure to stay out of sight. That was something that would definately be harder than the first time. When he'd done it the first time he had his camera with night vision, so the actual level of lighting in the area didn't matter too much.

Because he was streaming this time, though, he had to use his phone. That meant he had to wait until there was a full moon to make sure the light level was good enough that his camera could pick up on it.

Great for the content, bad for him since he couldn't rely on the dark to hide him.

It went on like this for a while; the monster would get close to his hiding spot, him moving, hiding again, repeat. About an hour into it, people were starting to get bored.

A chunk of people had already left, and people were getting annoyed that he was staying so far away from the creature. Faced with a decision, he made more distance before quietly speakng. "Okay, guys, since you're getting bored we'll do a poll. Ones in the chat to get closer, twos if I should keep doing what I've been doing."

Almost immediately once the stream lag caught up, the chat was flooded with ones. He sighed before preparing. "The things I do for content."

He began carefully stalking closer to the beast, making sure his footfalls were as quiet as possible as to not alert it of his presence. He was only a few trees away from it as he aimed the camera upwards, getting a good shot of the monster from the side as it had it's head in the air.

The creature itself was long and skeletal, almost eight feet tall with long, gangly arms that were almost as big as the rest of it's body that ended in sharp claws. It was still for a few minutes, seemingly just sitting there and sniffing the breeze.

Dib slowly moved, tense and ready to bolt at any moment as he got even closer. He was about a yard out of it's range now, still just quietly filming.

The monster's head suddenly shifted, looking in his direction and causing his breath to hitch as he took an instinctive step backwards.

"Shit."

The monster immediately prepared to give chase, it's muscles tensing as it got ready to pounce.

Dib turned heel and ran back in the direction he'd come from, his heart pounding as he desperately made distance. He'd learned last time that he was just barely faster, meaning that he could make enough distance to hide again if he pushed hard enough.

That plan fell appart pretty fast, though, when his right foot caught on a tree root. This caused the ankle to make a concerning pop as he came tumbling face first onto the ground. He very quickly picked his phone back up, scrambling to stand again and learning very quickly that that wasn't going to happen as he came crashing back down with a shooting pain going up his leg.

"Nononononono-", he was scooting back on the ground as the monster slowly stalked closer.

He kept backing up until he hit a tree, panicking even more as he realized he was probably done for. He quickly glaced from his encroaching demise to the horizon, it was way too early for the same dumb luck he'd had last time to save him now.

The beast got up close, ready to grab him by the midsection. He pointed his camera up at it, too scared to think of anything else to do in that moment.

As soon as it's claws even made light contact with him, the monster was suddenly assaulted by something that came almost flying into it from nowhere.

Dib flinched, no idea what was going on as his brain registered that he wasn't dead. He looked in the direction the beast had been flung, his eyes widening as he realized what had come to save him.

Zim was currently attacking the monster like a feral cat, biting and scratching at it with his sharp, claw like, fingers and all four of his pak legs.

Once Dib realized what was going on, he immediately directed his camera away so he didn't show the alien out of his disguise. He peered away from the action for a second, looking down to see the chat freaking out over what had just happened.

He directed his attention back at the fight, the monster basically a pile of ground meat now that Zim was done with it. Dib was almost feeling relieved, until the alien's murderous glare was directed at him.

Zim started slowly stalking over to him, looking like he was going to pounch on him next.

"Turn off your stream, Dib."

The alien's voice sounded even, calm almost, but Dib knew that wasn't the case.

He sat there frozen, trying to think of literally any way out of this situation. "Zim, I-"

"Turn it off before I destroy your phone."

Dib looked up at the pak legs that were still out and ready to strike at any moment. "Yeah ok gimme a second.", his voice was at a slightly higher pitch as he spoke, going to very quickly turn the stream off. A glance at the chat showed everyone watching freaking out, wondering what was going on. He tossed his phone away and raised his hands up in a gesture of surrender, "Ok, it's off."

Zim silently glared down at him for a long moment before a pak leg stabbed into the ground next to him. Dib let out a frightened yelp before trying to back away, only to be stopped by the tree he'd previously been stuck against.

Zim began to snarl. "Do you have _any_ idea what it felt like to watch that transpire?"

Another pak leg came down on his other side.

"Do you understand the fear and panic that arose from watching you backed into a corner by a monster with the intent to slaughter you?!"

One into the tree right above Dib's head.

"The fact that you would even consider doing this _again_ , after the exact same creature nearly killed you a mere weeks ago! You-!"

Zim was huffing as he yelled, his fists tightly balled at his sides.

Dib was still trying to catch his breath as he watched Zim go off, trying not to move too much in case the alien saw that as a challenge. Zim got closer before Dib could actually react. The human flinched, expecting to be attacked.

Instead, he was surprised by Zim kneeling down and wrapping his arms around him, resting his head on his shoulder and tightly holding on to his midsection.

"You were going to be killed. You had no plan for if it caught you, only to evade. Had Zim not tracked your phone, your insides would be scattered throughout the forest by now.", his voice was soft now as he held on tighter, "You have no sense of how your actions affect others, you just recklessly throw yourself at danger without considering what it's like to watch you destroy yourself in the pursuit of entertainment."

Dib was extremely confused, but he knew Zim had a point. "I...", Dib looked to the side, "Yeah, I guess I didn't think about that."

"When I first discovered your videos, I was so terrified. You may not properly understand, but you are extremely important to Zim.", the alien moved his head so that he could listen to Dib's heartbeat, "Seeing recorded accounts of you getting harmed on a near weekly basis was not a pleasant experience."

Dib let out a nervous chuckle, "I thought you liked when I got hurt?"

Zim dug his claws into Dib's back slightly for a moment, causing the human to yelp.

"Seeing you fall down is comedic. Watching you nearly get ripped apart is awful.", Zim's tone was a bit closer to his usual one when he said this, making Dib feel a bit less uneasy.

After a few more moments of them sitting there like that, Zim let go and stood up. "Are you able to walk?", the alien asked as he extended his hand.

"Maybe?", Dib felt around his ankle, wincing as he touched it, "I think I might have dislocated it this time..."

Zim knelt down to examine it, being careful not to cause any further damage. "Hmm... I believe that is an accurate assessment."

Dib let out a sigh, already dreading the impending hospital trip. Zim went over and grabbed Dib's phone, sliding it into his pocket before coming over and picking the human up next.

"Wh-?!", Dib wiggled around a bit as he was being lifted, his fight or flight still in full swing.

Zim used a few pak legs to restrain him slightly, "Stop moving before Zim drops you and forces you to exit the forest on your own!"

"R-right, sorry... I just wasn't expecting it."

"Is there anything else out here that needs to be collected before returning to your vehicle?"

Dib had to think for a moment, "My bag is still near the summoning area, but that's it otherwise." 

The walk was quiet, both because Zim was still upset with him and also because Dib was extremely exhausted. Using a pak leg to grab the human's bag, Zim also had to shift how he was holding him.

"Are you comforatble enough, currently?", the alien asked as he looked down.

Dib had appearantly fallen asleep at some point, his face nuzzled into Zim's arm. He gave a soft smile, just looking at him for a moment.

"Zim will assume that is a yes."

A few hours later, Dib woke up on his couch, his head resting on Zim's lap. He groggilly tried to sit up, still partially asleep and confused about what was going on. Zim placed a hand on Dib's forehead and forced him back down, not dragging his attention away from his phone screen.

This had the effect of waking Dib up more, making him remember everything that had happened the night prior.

He sat up again, swatting at Zim's hand as he did so. As he moved, he felt pain in several parts of his body; new bruises and cuts with the most prominent pain being in his ankle. He looked down at the injured apendage, noticing the splint on it.

"I dealt with your ankle while you were unconcious, it should heal correctly as long as you don't mess with it."

"Right... thanks.", Dib said as he avoided eye contact. Zim simply offered a little hum in response.

Not feeling awake enough to talk about the stuff they should absolutely be talking about, Dib instead went to check his phone. He figured people would be freaking out right now given how the stream had gone, and it would probably be a good idea to let them know he was alive still.

Opening everything up, he was indeed greeted by people freaking out, but not about something he'd been expecting. His face went even more pale than usual, his eyes widening as he scrolled faster through all the notifications that had come in.

"Shit! No, they can't be serious!"

"What are you panicking about?"

Dib tossed his phone at Zim before leaning back on the couch and placing his hands on his face, "I wish I just died."

Zim looked at him for a moment before grabbing the phone and looking at what Dib was freaking out over. Appearantly, the human's face had been on the stream a few times toward the end, and Zim saying his name clear enough to be heard at the end was enough for people to figure out who he was.

Now, there were a ton of 'fan cams' and other weird things of Dib's face being spread at a fast enough speed that it was unlikely anything could be done about it.

Dib lowered his hands as he looked at the ceiling, "I have no idea how to deal with this."

Zim rolled his eyes, "You don't need to, you aren't going to be doing it anymore."

Dib lowered his hands, "What? You don't get to decide that, Zim."

"You-!", the alien cut himself off, taking a deep breath to calm himself, "Zim just had to save you from your demise. Has none of that sunk in or did you end up with brain damage as well?"

"No I... I have thought about what you said. I'm definately gonna tone it down, but... I can't just stop with it completely. Especially not now that all these people have figured out who I am."

"You owe them nothing." "I know! But I'd still feel like shit if I just dissapeared completely.", Dib grabbed his phone back from Zim, "I'll put something on twitter for now so people know I'm still alive, at least. I'm way too tired to deal with this."

A few keystrokes later, Dib had let people know he was ok and laid back down on the couch. A few minutes of silence later, he adjusted so that his head was on Zim's lap again. "I guess we should actually talk about this now, huh?"

Zim crossed his arms and looked down at him, "Zim has already said what he wanted."

"Yeah, ok um...", Dib closed his eyes and sighed, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I lied to you about how I ended up getting hurt, I'm sorry I didn't tell you anything about what I was doing, and I'm really sorry I made you worry about me." He openned his eyes again and looked up at him, "And thank you, for saving me and taking care of my ankle. I honestly wouldn't be here if you hadn't shown up."

"Of course you wouldn't, I carried you."

Dib reached up and lightly smacked him, "You know what I meant."

Zim placed his hand over Dib's eyes, both to annoy him and to keep the human from seeing the blush that had begun forming on his cheeks, "Zim accepts your apologies. Hopefully you've learned some kind of lesson from this."

"Yeah, to turn my location stuff off on my phone next time."

Zim squeezed Dib's face a bit.

"Ow- kidding! I'm kidding! I won't go out and do this stuff alone anymore. But that does leave the issue of how to deal with that.", he paused for a moment, an idea striking, "Would you wanna help?"

"'Help' with it how?"

"Hmm... you could hold the camera? That way you're there if something happens and I can still get some good content."

Zim tapped his finger on Dib's cheek, earning an annoyed sound from the human.

"While I still don't like the idea of you continuing with this, I also know how stubborn you are."

Dib chuckled a bit, "You have no room to call anyone else stubborn."

"Shut up. I know you're stubborn enough to continue your summoning activities in spite of any safety concerns, so I agree to accompany you with this. However you need to better prepare to keep yourself from needing Zim to save you.", he thought for a second, "Also no more live videos. I was no doubt seen in the last one, and I refuse to wear those stupid lenses and wig for hours at a time when we're alone in the middle of nowhere."

Dib shot up, "Oh shit, wait! If they saw you then we need to figure out what to do about that."

He turned so he could look Zim in the eye, only to see that the alien was in no way as worried as he was. Zim rolled his eyes and scoffed, "No doubt they will be more worried about the reveal of your gigantic head than the blur they saw for a few moments."

"I still don't know..."

"Of course you don't, because you're stupid."

Dib glared at him for a moment before flopping back down a bit harder than neccissary onto Zim's lap, both earning a surpirsed noise from the alien and giving himself another headache. Zim shoved him off and onto the floor, regretting it a bit as Dib made a pained noise upon impact.

After eventually helping Dib back up onto the couch, they talked a bit more before the human had Zim help him limp to his bedroom. After gracefully depositing (dropping) him on the bed, Zim left for the night so Dib could rest.

Come the next day, they were both in Dib's livingroom setting up to film a new video adressing the livestream.

"You're sure you know how the camera works?", Dib asked as he fiddled with his outfit a bit more, "I don't want you bre-"

Zim, who had decided he wanted to hold the camera rather than just leave it on the tripod, rolled his eyes, "Shut up, Dib. Zim is fully capable of operating such a primative piece of equipment."

Dib glared at him for a moment, ready to say something but opting to just sigh and shake his head instead, "Whatever, just start it."

Dib let out a nervous huff as he sat there waiting for Zim to begin recording. The alien messed with a few things on the camera before reaching behind him and grabbing an apple off of the counter, tossing it at Dib's head.

The human brought his arms up to block it, "Wh-?! Hey?!"

"It's recording.", Zim snickered.

Dib rolled his eyes before looking at the camera lense with a sigh.

"Right... Hey guys, Mothman again. As you can see, my face is actually in this video. From the title, and literally everything on twitter, you can probably guess what this is about."

He shrugged, hoping he didn't look as bothered as he felt over the whole thing.

"The livestream definately did not go according to plan, honestly that was entirely my fault."

Zim laughed from behind the camera, prompting Dib to throw the apple back at him. "You said you'd be quiet while I recorded."

Zim pouted at him before making some fake puppy eyes, "Oh, but I am only doing the job applied to me. It isn't Zim's fault you're just so hilariously stupid."

"I will throw you out the window."

"Just get back to what you were saying so we can be done with this."

Dib rolled his eyes before getting back on point. "I definately didn't plan on doing a face reveal, honestly ever. Considering the fact that I have...", he checked his phone, "thirty-five missed messages from my dad saying that people contacting the labs asking if I was ok; you guys can probably understand why."

His phone went off again and he sighed.

"Thirty-six. Please, don't do that by the way. At this point it is what it is, I guess at the very least that's one less thing I have to edit out. I'm gonna have to get used to the twitter stans using my face as their profile pictures."

"Who is this 'Stan' on twitter? Why are they using your picture?", Zim asked, his head tilted to the side.

Dib pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, Zim, it's not someone named Stan, it's-", he cut him self off and looked back up at him, "I'll explain it after we're done recording. Thinking of explaining, though, I guess we should get to the topic of there being a roach holding the camera."

Zim let out a fake offended gasp, "How dare you refer to Zim as a roach of all things!"

Dib laughed as Zim tried to hit him with the camera, "Stop it, you're gonna break my camera!"

"Apologize for calling me a roach!"

"Alright, sorry sorry!", Dib said, still laughing.

Zim settled back down, lining the shot back up and telling Dib to continue.

"So as you guys can probably tell, I have a camera guy now! It's a friend of mine that I've known since we were kids, he's pretty great."

He froze for a split second before just continuing like he hadn't just said that out loud.

"Uh, yeah, but Zim is gonna be filming from now on. It's also probably gonna be a bit before any new videos, at least outside of the edited version of of the livestream. Ankle is absolutely trashed this time, gonna be a few months probably before I can safely run around on it.", he chuckled awkwardly, "Probably gonna be a week or two before I get around to editing the stream too, I'm honestly just super tired. The only reason I'm doing this one is so the people who only keep up with the youtube know I'm not dead or anything."

He tried to think of anything else that he needed to say for a moment.

"Um... I think that's all that really needed to be adressed in this, not really a long video, just an update. Oh, wait, actually! I know I said that the livestream would stay up, but there's a few things toawd the end that I want edited out of even the long version of it. I know me re-uploading it will get rid of the chat archive, but I'm gonna edit the chat onto the side when I put it back so nothing is really missing outside of being able to scroll through it while you watch. I'm aso gonna have the chat replay in the edited down version so be ready for that. Ok, now that's everything; I'm like ninety percent sure! If there is anything I forgot you can look in the description for it or if there's a pinned comment."

He did his usual sign-off stuff, surprised that Zim had stayed quiet for the remainder of it, and the recording was over.

Dib sighed as he took the camera back from Zim. He was happy to have that recorded, but now came the issue of editing. Not that Dib even felt like dealing with that at that point, opting to instead just go lay down on his couch and rest for the time being.

Zim awkwardly looked at him, standing at the end of the couch not sure what he should be doing. After a few minutes of hoping Zim would just figure something out, Dib rolled over onto his stomach and lifted his legs up, "Sit, we're watching a movie."

Zim rolled his eyes as he sat, carefully resting an arm on the human's legs after they were placed on his lap, "And why would I want to do that?"

"Well, judging by the way you just stood there staring at me for a solid few minutes, I'm gonna guess you don't have anything else to be doing right now."

"There is plenty Zim could be doing right now."

"Cool, what genre you want?", Dib asked as he set the tv up.

"... Poorly made horror."

An hour or so into the movie, Dib had adjusted himself so that his head and arms were resting on Zim's lap as they watched. A little bit after that, Dib was dozing off as Zim lazilly played with his hair.

Once the movie ended, Zim carefully used a pak leg to grab the remote so he could put on something random.

Looking down at the sleeping human in his lap, Zim smiled a bit. He was still aprehensive knowing that Dib would be continuing with his videos, but he couldn't help feeling content for the time being. It wasn't much, but it was enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so, first things first i'm sorry that the quality dropped, i lost motivation and i barely wanted to finish this let alone proofread.
> 
> it's not cause i hate it or anything, i could have just left it in the land of unfished garbage, but my brain decided to suddenly switch hyperfixations and i can't focus on anything invader zim related no matter how much i try.
> 
> it makes me feel like shit cause im in the middle of so many things that i literally can't bring myself to finish. one of those is idiot with a cause, which makes me super sad cause i want to finish that fic but i physically cannot bring myself to. i already said this on insta but im gonna take a step back from invader zim stuff for now and just go head first into the new hyperfixation til it calms itself down.
> 
> im not gonna write any fics for the time being, both because im gonna focus on another few projects but also cause the new hyperfixation is something i don't really feel comfy writing fics for despite the fact that i've been reading them ;;
> 
> thank you for reading this, though, i appreciate anyone who took time to read this and again really sorry i didn't edit a good majority of this to the same standards i usually have


End file.
